Articulating the future of spatial data science

In his book Spatial Data Science (Esri Press, 2024), John P. Wilson outlines why and how spatial scientists and data scientists complement one another in their thought processes and methods. He calls for scientists across academic disciplines and practitioners in diverse application domains to adopt and utilize the latest advances in computing, new geospatial data streams and the latest spatial methods.

Zhang, Z., King, J., Wang, S., Sinton, D., Wilson, J., & Shook, E. (2024). Moving CyberGIS education forward: Knowing what matters and how it is decided. Transactions in GIS (2024).

Liu, X., Chen, M., Claramunt, C., Batty, M., Kwan, M.-P., Senousi, A., Cheng, T., Strobl, J., Coltekin, A., Wilson, J.P., Bandrova, T., Konecny, M., Torrens, P., Zhang, F., He, L., Wang, J., Ratti, C., Kolditz, O., Klippel, A., Li, S., Lin, H., Lü, G., Geographic information science in the era of geospatial big data: A cyberspace perspective. The Innovation, 3(5), 100279 (2022).

The focus on place, space, time and spatiotemporal information and the complementary roles of theory, practice and technology in the spatial sciences offer hope that we can achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals before the world as we know it is irreversibly changed.

John P. Wilson, Professor of Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Population and Public Health Sciences, Sociology and Spatial Sciences

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Siqin Wang, Ph.D., SSI Associate Professor (Teaching) of Spatial Sciences